Pictures
by Penguin
Summary: Waya never says a word to Isumi about that article in the teenage magazine, and he has good reason. This is a short companion piece to Absolute Beginners. Waya/Isumi


**Disclaimer: **Obviously, the Hikaru no Go characters don't belong to me, however much I'd like them to, but to Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata. I'm not making any money from this, and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Notes: **Companion piece to _Absolute Beginners._

PICTURES

Naturally it's Shindou who drops the bomb.

Waya likes Shindou although he sometimes wonders why – Shindou can try anyone's patience, and Waya isn't exactly known for his long-suffering nature. Today, Waya wishes he'd never met the annoying brat.

They're leaving the Institute after one of Morishita-sensei's study sessions when Shindou suddenly pulls a brightly coloured magazine from his backpack.

"Hey, Waya! Have you seen this?" He leafs through it to find the right page and thrusts it into Waya's hands.

Waya stops dead, eyes fixed on the glossy spread in front of him in something resembling shock. The left-hand page features three photos of Isumi in a sleek, black, exceedingly well-cut designer suit, leaning carefully nonchalantly against a rough concrete wall with a nineteen by nineteen graffiti-style Go board on it.

Waya just stares.

In the first photo, Isumi is leaning his shoulders against the wall with his feet crossed and hands shoved into his trouser pockets, the jacket open and pushed back to serve up his slender, perfect torso in a crisp shirt like something temptingly on display in a confectioner's window. His gaze is lost in the distance and his hair artfully tousled, tumbling softly over one side of the face, looking positively made to be brushed away by an adoring hand.

Waya bites his tongue, hard.

The second photo is taken from the side, the photographer standing close to the wall, showing Isumi's clean profile as he bows his head to look at the ground, hair falling over his forehead, skin touched golden by the soft light. His hands are still in his pockets, one knee drawn up and the sole of his shoe resting against the wall.

It's a breathtaking photo, but it's the third one that causes some kind of weird explosion of heat in the pit of Waya's stomach. He isn't sure exactly what he feels or why, only that he sort of wants to punch Isumi, and Shindou even more.

The third photo is taken closer up, showing Isumi down to the waist with the jacket removed and slung casually over one shoulder, held there with a finger hooked through the hanger, his hand lightly curled with the palm towards the reader like an invitation. He looks up through his styled fringe straight at the camera, the smouldering intensity of his dark eyes enough to make at least this particular reader begin to tremble. The long fringe is Isumi's trademark, and Waya has seen him look up through it or down from under it enough times to feel he _owns_ that look. It belongs to him. Isumi is only supposed to look at _him_ that way, not make himself available to a million gasping, giggling girls who will think Isumi is the hottest thing they've ever seen.

They'll be right, too, because he is. Waya, for one, has never seen anything even close.

The article seems to be one in a series on young professionals in different fields – stock brokers, entrepreneurs, writers, pop stars – but Waya doesn't want to read. His eyes skip over the text to come to rest on the single photo on the right-hand page, where Isumi is seated at a goban looking across it into the camera, holding a black glass stone between his fingers and smiling in a way that makes Waya hate the photographer.

Returning to reality, he finds that his hands are shaking, and also that Shindou is talking and probably has been talking the whole time Waya has stared at the gorgeously beautiful Isumi who is at once so familiar and a complete stranger.

"He'll never hear the end of this," Shindou is laughing. "It's kind of cool of course, even though I won't say that to _him_. He looks pretty amazing, don't you think? Half the girls in Tokyo will cream their pants."

"_Shindou!_"

The little brat only grins wider at that, snatches the magazine out of Waya's hands and crams it back into his backpack. When they exit into the street he's already chattering about something else, but Waya doesn't hear him. His blood is pounding and drowning out both Shindou and the noise of the city, and he wonders why he's feeling so shaken and so utterly upset, like Isumi has somehow betrayed him.

On his way home he stops at a news stand to buy the magazine, and he'll never, ever tell anyone how much time he spends staring at the photos of Isumi that evening, or all the days that follow.

Their friends tease Isumi endlessly about it. He seems both amused, embarrassed and the tiniest bit flattered by it, but Waya only looks on, stony-faced. For him it's so far from a joke that he can't bring himself to join in.

A couple of weeks later, he buys his third copy of the magazine, trying to pretend to himself it's not happening. The earlier copies have been carried around everywhere, opened and closed a thousand times, crumpled, cried on, slept on, kissed and moaned over, stained with tea, semen and tears. Waya wonders briefly whether he should keep them as a warning to himself not to trip over the edge and fall straight into insanity, but the fear of someone finding them makes him throw them away. This copy is to be kept among his Go magazines in pristine condition.

Years later, after that magical night in Kyoto, Waya wonders whether pulling up his top and pushing himself into Isumi's face like that was some kind of subconscious revenge – wanting to make Isumi as completely lost in desire as Waya has been.

Although it does seem to have worked, he never mentions any of it to Isumi, and the magazine continues to live quietly between two issues of Weekly Go.


End file.
